Perhaps like you, I received an e-mail that contained some great little, humorous sayings, such as, “Don’t let your worries get the best of you.  Remember, Moses started out as a basket case.”  I printed them out.

After picking them up this morning, the sayings  started me thinking.  Often we reduce our Christian experience to cute sayings and convenient platitudes.  Don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy these lovely or goofy sayings as much as anyone.  My concern is that my relationship with the Lord should never become a “little post-it note from the Lord.”

A wonderful young man whom I love very much was thrilled to tell me last week that he had joined the Church of Latter Day Saint.  “They were able to answer ALL my questions.  Nothing was left as a mystery.”  This young man eager to understand God was impressed that this religion could teach him in a few hours everything about God that he needed to know.  This is the third or fourth person who has become a Mormon who has told me that the reason they converted was because  “they answered all my questions.”

God will never answer all our questions and that is the joy of becoming a Christian.  There is always something else to learn–another mystery to uncover.  Even the most foundational principles of Christ’s love have layers and depths that the most simple or complex minds can uncover but we never reach the end of their heights, width or depths.  Whether you have the IQ of a genius or you are mentally challenged, Paul tells us that many things about God are a great mystery.  Yet, the principles we need to know to have a relationship with the Lord are easy enough to understand.  In addition, the Holy Spirit reveals things to even the simplest minds that those of us who have greater intellect can’t seem to figure out.

Waking each morning, we can all understand how serious God feels about our relationship.  He gave his life to redeem us and to gain our love.  There is little that I can say that you haven’t heard before now.  Yet, we can never out love or fully understand this amazing God who wasn’t satisfied for us to live and die without him.  In fact, to quote a songwriter, “He would rather die than ever live without us.”

That isn’t a cliché but God’s truth wrapped in love.  This is a love that we can never understand but only accept and embrace.